Carpathian 02 - Dark Desire

within my body — can you not hear it? Your heart beats with the same rhythm so that it matches mine.
    "Were you a playboy before they buried you?" she asked him, tossing a mischievous grin over her shoulder. Shea checked her gun to make certain it was clean and loaded. "You need to drink that, Jacques, not just hold it. And then go back to sleep. The more rest you get, the faster you'll heal."
    You persist in being my doctor when I so need my lifemate to come and lie beside me. Again his voice was temptation itself.
    "Drink, Jacques." She tried to sound stern, but it was impossible when he was looking so desperate for her company.
    I am desperate.
    She couldn't help but shake her head. "You're outrageous."
    He made an attempt to raise the glass to his mouth, but his arm wobbled. I cannot lift this without your aid, Shea. I am too weak.
    "Am I supposed to believe you?" She laughed aloud but crossed to his side. "You were strong enough to lift me off my feet with one hand when I found you. Don't give me that poor-little-boy look, Jacques, because it won't work."
    But it was working. He needed to feel her touch, the brush of her fingers in his hair, and she stroked his thick mane without conscious thought. Her fingers lingered as if she enjoyed the sensation as much as he did. Jacques took the gun from her hand and pulled her down beside him, as hungry for the feel of her warmth beside him as he was for the sustenance she provided. Her scent drifted to him—the forest, the flowers, and the night air itself. He wrapped an arm around her and held her to him. She relaxed, allowing her eyelashes to drift down.
    Shea slept fitfully, her body cumbersome in the light of the day. Jacques lay beside her, motionless, his arm a heavy weight curved possessively around her waist. Several times she struggled to surface during the afternoon hours, but it was an impossibility. Once she heard a noise outside the cabin, and her heart pounded in alarm, but she was unable to summon up enough energy to do more than clutch the gun beneath the pillow tightly. She knew she was responsible for their safety, yet she couldn't pry her eyes open or force herself to rise and check around the cabin to ensure no one was near.
    The sun had long since sunk beneath the mountains before Shea managed to rouse herself. Hunger was a gnawing, relentless ache, but the thought of food made her stomach heave. She struggled to sit up, far Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    weaker than she had ever been. She pushed a hand through her heavy fall of wine-red hair.
    Jacques' fingers circled her arm, slid the length from shoulder to wrist. She was small and delicate, yet she had such inner strength. It amazed him how brave and courageous she was, how compassionate. He found her intriguing, mysterious even. The world as he knew it had begun seven years earlier: pain, isolation, and darkness. The monster in him had grown, eclipsed his soul. At first he had had no emotion at all, simply a will that would never die, an icy determination, a promise of retribution made in exchange for his lost soul. He would find them—the betrayer, the human assassins—and he would destroy them.
    But once he had found his lifemate, despite the distance that separated them, he had begun to feel. To smolder with a black fury that would never cease until he had found a way to retaliate for the loss of his soul. Every emotion he possessed was dark and ugly. Until Shea had changed him. Since the moment he had merged his mind with hers, he had stayed there in that haven, a part of her, a shadow so quiet she didn't always know he was there. He could not bear to be away from her.
    Jacques' fist tangled in her thick, luxurious hair. She stirred things in him he had no name for. He would never endure closed-in places again, never endure being alone again. And he would never allow Shea to place herself at risk. Silently cursing his weakened body, he brought the silken strands of her hair to his face, inhaling her fragrance.
    "I'm so tired, Jacques," she confessed, swaying slightly as she sat on the side of the bed. She found it strange to have someone to talk to, to wake up and not be alone. Shea should have been uncomfortable in the situation—she had never shared her life with anyone—yet with Jacques there was a weird familiarity, as if she had known him forever.
    Her life had always been one of isolation, a certain distance always present between